What Are You Reading?

[Pharass]

Read the third volume of The Unwritten; this series keeps getting better. My favorite thing about this volume was the part that focused on Lizzie's origin (or rather origins), which is told in the style of one of those choose-your-own-adventure books, great stuff.
There's also a lot of Mr Pullman in this volume, which is always a good thing. Pullman is quickly becoming one of my favorite villains in comics.

[gunswordfist]

I loved reading choose-your-adventure stories as a kid. Speaking of villains, any chance you'll do the Greatest Villain Tournament? I want to do a different type myself soon.

After hearing about how The Matrix ripped off The Invisibles, I really want to read that comic book myself. It sounds very interesting. Also, after seeing that Lewis Larosa has done some art for Harbinger and Shadowman while I was liking up his work to favorite on tumblr after I signed up on the site early this morning, I'll be checking those out too. They look very cool.

[Pharass]

 

I loved reading choose-your-adventure stories as a kid. Speaking of villains, any chance you'll do the Greatest Villain Tournament? I want to do a different type myself soon.

I've decided to wait until the Greatest Animated Movie Tournament is finished. So feel free to go ahead and do what you've planned to do. If you want, you can always host the Greatest Villain Tournament in my place.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I loved reading choose-your-adventure stories as a kid. Speaking of villains, any chance you'll do the Greatest Villain Tournament? I want to do a different type myself soon.

I've decided to wait until the Greatest Animated Movie Tournament is finished.

At the pace that's going you're going to be waiting for a looooooonnnnggg time. 

[gunswordfist]

I loved reading choose-your-adventure stories as a kid. Speaking of villains, any chance you'll do the Greatest Villain Tournament? I want to do a different type myself soon.

I've decided to wait until the Greatest Animated Movie Tournament is finished.

At the pace that's going you're going to be waiting for a looooooonnnnggg time. 

But his computer is "broken"

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just started reading a manga called REAL, about wheelchair basketball, written by the very same guy who did Slam Dunk and Vagabond. It's pretty good stuff so far, though I'm not that far into it, yet.

Meanwhile, I'm currently 950+ chapters into HnI. Man, this manga has definitely gone on for way too long. It's not bad or anything, but it's incredibly repetitive by this point. I still love the anime and the first 300-400 chapters of the manga, but after that its mostly mediocre. With a few pretty good parts in between. Even so, I'm still probably going to catch up to the current releases since now I'm finally less than 100 chapters behind.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finished volume 1 of REAL. Yep, this one's definitely a keeper. Man, Inoue Takehiko is so talented. Slam Dunk was one of the best shounen sports manga ever, but who knew that the same author could write such good Seinen material as well? Despite also being about basketball, this manga is very different in both tone and general themes to SD, and it goes much deeper with developing the characters, at least so far.

Speaking of Takehiko, I also need to get back into reading Vagabond one of these days.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

While browsing around at the book store today, I came across Captain America: The Winter Soldier (the complete run). I was SO tempted to buy it, but at $25 + tax, the price was a little too steep for me, right now.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Caught up with the Ashita no Joe manga, and wrote brief thoughts on that in the respective thread. Still great as ever. Still on track to being my favorite manga.

I've also caught up with Assassination Classroom. It still amazes me how popular this series has become. It totally deserves it. I don't think there's else anything quite like it. It's a comedy manga, that takes cues from Great Teacher Onizuka (and I assume similar non-traditonal authority figure motivates/helps out kids manga), combines it with the occasional clever battle stories, and blends it together with slice of life humor. It's an interesting mix that plays off, and at this point, the many characters of the story, including Nagisa who I previously considered a bit bland, have come into their own and have become fun characters in their own right.

The series had it's first series story arc between chapters 60-73. At first I was hesitant to read what I thought was going to be a transition into more battle-shonen territory (which are, so far, my least favorite aspects of Gintama), but the way it was presented was really interesting. With Korosensei unable to fight, the students and Karasuma and Irina had to manage on their own to take down deadly, professionally trained assassins. I think their skills, which were shown developing in previous chapters, were employed believably here without it seeming ridiculous or questionable. The students were still way weaker against the professional assassins, and had to rely on carefully planned tactics in order to survive. I especially enjoyed Nagisa's "fight" with the mastermind, which was completely one of wit and exploiting his enemy's nerves. It was a great moment for his character. The arc had great moments for nearly all the characters, in fact, especially Terasaka, who has quickly become one of my favorite characters in the series.

Overall, if the manga can create more interesting, tactical and strategic fights and arcs like they did here in the future, than I think I can enjoy more serious, battle-shonen esque moments from it. I'm sure another serious arc is brewing, considering all the assassins that are being slaughtered (including Irina's teacher, which surprised me), and Iotina and Shiro on the move again. I like the more down to earth, comedy/slice of life stories and assassination plots, though, so hopefully the series still balances those as it goes forward. Overall, I'm really enjoying this manga, and it's definitely a deserved hit. I hope it continues to be consistently entertaining and gain respectable popularity when it comes over to the states, too.

Now that I'm caught up with Assassination Classroom, I'm now starting to read Kuroko no Basket. I'm only 5 chapters in, but I was surprised that they are already facing off against a member of the Generation of Miracles so quickly. It's nice the series doesn't waste time. I have to say the manga is very entertaining for me so far. The humor works, and Kuroko and Kagami are likable and fun characters, and the coach is a blast too. As far as "starts" go, I might give Kuroko an edge over Slam Dunk since while I also enjoyed that series right off the bat, this one feels like it's done more this early on to establish the characters and their goals than that did. Still, I have much more of both series I need to get through, so I can't really compare until I'm done with them. Hopefully I can catch up to Kuroko before the end of the month.

I've read about half of Ode to Kirihito so far. Definitely an amazing medical drama exploring human perceptions, biases, morals, discrimination, and pride; Tezuka is such a masterful writer. Way before his time, imo. This'll no doubt be up there with Barbara, MW, and Swallowing the Earth once I'm done with it. I plan to finish reading all of Tezuka's manga (that have been translated) before the school year ends. With how busy I am, that'll probably amount to binge reading his stuff on the last few, no very busy days of school, but since my library has all of his translated work readily available it's an opportunity I want to take advantage of.

And I still plan to read through Mushi-shi and the Black Lagoon manga this month. I hope I can manage that, since I really want to be able to watch Mushi-shi 2 when it comes out next season, and I don't know if I can finish the anime before then. With Black Lagoon, I just want to read it to celebrate the anime's debut on Toonami, and also just to finally be caught up on it so I can have another seinin manga to read alongside One-Punch Man and All You Need Is Kill.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just finished volume 3 of REAL. While its not necessarily as energetic as Slam Dunk, it's honestly just as good for a different reason, and that's character development. Inoue Takehiko really proves that he knows exactly how to evoke strong emotions in scenes that need them, and this manga has had p,entry of great moments of that already. While it's. a bit predictable where the story and characters are heading, it's the kind of predictable where you look forward to what's coming thanks to amazing execution and really likable characters who you genuinely want to see overcome their obstacles.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So I read a comic called Rover Red Charlie, that's sort of like Homeward Bound. The only difference is this.

[gunswordfist]

*closed tab*

[Spark Of Spirit]

Boy, am I glad I wasn't at work when I saw that.

[Avaitor]

The guys at the comic book shop have been trying to get me to read Afterlife With Archie for a while, so I finally caved in and bought the first issue (apparently the GN is going to cost more than it will to buy the issues, which is why I didn't wait).

It's pretty much what you'd expect and hope from the title- Walking Dead with Archie characters, and thankfully, they don't tone it down much at all. It works even better if you're familiar with the comics, because they add in a bunch of references here and there. If I can squeeze my budget tight enough, I'll try to get the next couple of issues as soon as I can.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I'm about 55 chapters into Kuroko no Basket. Everything's still pretty good so far. I do enjoy the characters a lot, at least the main ones. The matches themselves are good, though I honestly found the match with Tohoh a bit underwhelming for a pivotal match for Seirin, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I will say I am a bit impatient to catch up with the series because I've discovered other manga that I really am itching to read asap, but the series should pick up from here from what I understand so I look forward to that.

Now, what are some of those manga I'm itching to read? Well, Kimagure Orange Road for one. I only decided to check out what the first chapter was like out of curiosity...and I ended up reading an entire volume's worth of content in no time. This is exactly the kind of series I've been looking for ever since I finsihed Maison Ikkoku! A down to earth romance series with engaging, interesting leads with strong characterizations and interesting dilemmas. Even putting aside the fantastical aspect of the series (the Kasuga family's esp powers), this is simply the perfect kind of slice of life romance comedy, one that I haven't been able to find since finishing Ikkoku. Comparing first volumes, I still would give a slight edge to Ikkoku because it deals with, well, the problems of young adults which I can relate to and appreciate these days more than that of teenagers, but it's still fantastic and so, so fun so far. I haven't been THIS excited to read something in a long, long time; not even Joe, which even though I liked it from the start, took me until the Juvenille Prison arc to really become fascinated with it. This is just what I've wanted to read for so long now, and skimming thoughts and reviews calling this a masterpiece and totally on Ikkoku's level, I wager I am in for a hell of a treat. I want to switch to the anime for a while, if only because I don't want to feel unmotivated to watch the anime later on when I get busy because I already know the story, but yeah, I think I've found a future favorite here, a call I normally refuse to make until I'm a good way into a series (like with Kenshin and Berserk, where it took me several volumes until I could say, yes, I love these series). So yeah, I REALLY want more Kimagure in my life soon as possible.

I have plenty of other series on my backlog I hope to get through soon. Tezuka stuff, as I've said before, is my priority to catch up on. After that, there are plenty of significant titles at my library that I want to burn through. Really, my plan is basically for the last week of school, when I don't have anything left to do, to just go to the library after school and binge read as much manga as possible. My anime and live-action series backlog is a tedious thing for me since I find myself with so little time to invest in series I don't already watch these days, but with manga I am able to read stuff more flexibly and quickly, and it's in general it's just more fun for me. I wouldn't be surprised if I manage to knock out quite a bit of my backlog even before the end of this year.